Posts Tagged "innovation"

Here is a selection of book reviews from recent issues of Nature on scientific daring, entrepreneurial brio and finely tuned judgment of social need. Economists Leonid Gokhberg and Dirk Meissner compare studies on the troubled trajectories of innovation in Russia and the United States. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/501313a Historian Cyrus Mody reviews an epic account on the visionary [...]

Every single day, all across the globe, extraordinarily creative and talented students sit in our classrooms bored out of their minds. These budding innovators may differ drastically in what particular domain captivates their attention, whether it’s science and engineering, architecture and design, arts, music and entertainment, business and finance, law, or health care. Nevertheless, as Richard Florida [...]

This afternoon, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to direct our cars, trucks and buses to a realm that doesn’t include gas stations. During a visit to Argonne National Laboratory, he will call for $2-billion energy security trust fund dedicated to research to boost automobile efficiency, enhance battery technology and expand the use of biofuels, [...]

Philip Yam is the managing editor of ScientificAmerican.com. He is the author of The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting and Other Prion Diseases. Philip can be found on Twitter as @philipyam.

The honorees stood, backs ramrod straight, facing the audience at the White House. Each was about to receive either the National Medal of Science or the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. As the moment stretched, the silence of anticipation filled the room. Suddenly, a cellphone chirped—literally—with a sound of a cricket in an empty [...]

Editor in Chief, Mariette DiChristina, oversees Scientific American, ScientificAmerican.com, Scientific American MIND and all newsstand special editions. Mariette can be found on Twitter as @mdichristina.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night touched on topics that are near and dear to us at Scientific American, including technology, green energy sources, health care and innovation. Four of our editors give their thoughts on Obama’s speech and provide some context in the video below: [...]

Eric is multimedia journalist and producer who specializes in science and natural history. His work has appeared on the websites of Scientific American, Nature, Nature Medicine, Popular Science, Slate and The New York Times among many others. He is a former video producer & editor for Scientific American. Eric R. can be found on Twitter as @EricROlson.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night had to hearten the science and technology community. The effort to "win the future," in which the U.S. can compete globally and thrive economically, requires some major investment in research. "We need to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world," Obama stated. [...]

Philip Yam is the managing editor of ScientificAmerican.com. He is the author of The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting and Other Prion Diseases. Philip can be found on Twitter as @philipyam.

SAN DIEGO—Not everything you try will work, but you need to try lots of ideas. That was advice here from Nathan Myhrvold, founder of Intellectual Ventures and former chief technology officer at Microsoft, on the opening evening of the TEDMED conference, held from October 27 through 29. Myhrvold and the other speakers offered plenty of [...]

Editor in Chief, Mariette DiChristina, oversees Scientific American, ScientificAmerican.com, Scientific American MIND and all newsstand special editions. Mariette can be found on Twitter as @mdichristina.

As discussions begin today at the 10th MIT Energy Conference, the energy sector ponders how industry, government, and the scientific community can combine forces to enable the rapid evolution of the energy system. Will it be a modern day Bell Laboratories? Or is a new approach to innovation and the funding paradigm needed? Looking back [...]

Varun Mehra is currently a graduate student in the Technology and Policy Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Previously, he was a Technology-to-Market Analyst with the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) within the Department of Energy, working with academic institutions and small companies to help commercialize energy technologies. While at ARPA-E, he also helped to launch the first inter-agency partnership with the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, aimed at educating early-stage technology developers on business model development.

Sebastien Lounis recently completed his Ph.D. in Applied Science & Technology at UC Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he was co-president of the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC), an organization connecting over 3,000 students, faculty and industry members around programing and events related to energy innovation. He also served as editor in chief of the Berkeley Science Review, where he led a team of writers, editors and designers telling stories about research coming out of the university. Sebastien also holds a B.S. in Physics and a B.S. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is currently a member of the Cyclotron Road team, heading up its work in Communications and Partnerships.

I’ve been mentioning R&D in talks and articles a lot lately. Most audiences outside the beltway don’t immediately know I mean Research and Development – until I explain it’s the part of our federal budget accounting for a good deal of “science stuff.” R&D supports basic research and leads to new innovation while helping boost [...]

Sheril Kirshenbaum is Director of The Energy Poll at The University of Texas at Austin where she works to enhance public understanding of energy issues and improve communication between scientists, policymakers, and the public. Sheril can be found on Twitter as @Sheril_.

By Wang Tao Struggling sales in the electric vehicle (EV) market have resulted in serious questions being raised about their viability. Despite Chinese government incentives, only a few Chinese EV pilot cities have met their target of putting 1,000 EVs on the road. Meanwhile, in the United States the GM Volt and Nissan Leaf have [...]

John McDonald believes that technological innovation is a key piece of a strong future for the energy sector. This is an industry with a history of impressive engineering feats. And, as Chevron’s Vice President and Chief Technology Office, McDonald speaks with passion and excitement about the technological breakthroughs that are still to come (1). Similar [...]

This is a guest post by Dawn Santoianni. Why does diverting waste from a landfill and turning that waste into energy cause so much controversy? Despite the widespread use of waste-to-energy (WTE) in European countries, here in the U.S. WTE has a reputation for being “dirty.” Environmental activist groups frequently oppose WTE because of air emissions [...]

The November/December Scientific American Mind, which debuted online today, examines the origins of genius, a concept that inspires both awe and confusion. Some equate genius with IQ or creativity; others see it as extraordinary accomplishment. As this issue reveals, genius seems to arise from a mosaic of forces that coalesce into a perfect storm of [...]

Ingrid Wickelgren is an editor at Scientific American Mind, but this is her personal blog at which, at random intervals, she shares the latest reports, hearsay and speculation on the mind, brain and behavior. Ingrid can be found on Twitter as @iwickelgren.

The July/August issue of Scientific American Mind made its debut online late last week. Here I divulge some of the more surprising and useful lessons from its pages. Dozing Dangerously Sleepwalking is one of the strangest phenomena I have ever witnessed. Despite its name, it doesn’t resemble any other kind of sleep I’ve seen. To [...]

Ingrid Wickelgren is an editor at Scientific American Mind, but this is her personal blog at which, at random intervals, she shares the latest reports, hearsay and speculation on the mind, brain and behavior. Ingrid can be found on Twitter as @iwickelgren.